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Friday, 31 January 2014

A narrative poem
this week, a story I heard many years ago and thought, at the time, would make
a good poem.

It hinges, I
suppose on the naive idea that things remain unchanging-even though we do not
see them for many years. It’s the image that exiles have of their homeland that
bears no relation to reality, as though frozen on the day that they left.

All the emotional
details I made up. I wanted the adult in the poem to be changed by the visit.

My father
drove the borrowed car,

red and
shiny.

the vinyl
seat stuck to my legs,

heat
clouding round my feet.

The house
was inside my head,

my father
had talked it into existence

our dream
estate described.

Now we see
the gate posts,

then the
drive bends to reveal

nothing...

Smooth green
mounds,

a sense of
space and sky.

No
geography,

he walks
this ground adrift.

How can this house have gone,

and me not have heard?

Eventually
he stops.

Silently, we
drove the way we had come.

My father
changed after that.

Hugged me
and my sister more,

seemed to labour
over his tales,

talked only
of times we had shared.

I found a
photograph,

creased,
yellowed,

in his
wallet,

after his
death,

of the front
of a house.

Smiling
ghosts on the drive.

I am not sure how
well it works. This is an earlier draft:

My father
drove the borrowed car,

Red and
shiny.

The vinyl
seat stuck to my legs,

Heat
clouding round my feet.

The house
was inside my head,

The house my
father had talked of

All through
my life,

Our dream
estate described

Then we saw
the gate posts,

Now the
drive bends to reveal

Nothing..........

Smooth green
mounds,

A sense of
space and sky.

No
geography, he walks this ground adrift,

Mutters:
“How can this house have gone,

And me not
have heard?”

Eventually
he stops.

Silently, we
drove the way we had come.

My father
changed after that.

Hugged me
and my sister more,

Seemed to
labour over his tales,

Talked only
of times we had shared.

After his
death I found a photograph

Of a house
in his wallet,

Creased,
yellowed.

Smiling
ghosts on the drive.

There are a number
of differences between the two versions. The second was published in my first
collection burning Music – now long out of print, though I keep saying I am
about to publish it as an ebook. Watch this space…

Here is Annabelle Chvostek singing A Piece of You. I was trying to load her singing This Machine from the other night in Totnes-but it won't let me for some reason...

Friday, 24 January 2014

Something different this week. A short story I wrote about 5 years ago. I'd be interested in what you make of it.

WALES

The sun had been unexpected. As we drove along the
estuary that early July evening we talked about how lucky we had been, that
this holiday would have been far different if we had not had the sun. Neutral
topics to ease this journey, I was hoping we could relax in the warm of the
sunset and listen to the music, take the focus of our stuttering relationship.

I had seen in the local paper an advert for this gig and
we had nothing better to do. As I said it would stop us picking at the sore that
was our marriage. Reluctantly I had come to suspect it had never been
right. I was surprised to see it was
Unison sponsored gig, my union, here somewhere near Carnarvon. We saw the signs
then the tent, and we parked.

The gaggle of people waiting to enter the area looked to
me like any audience at any gig in a place where they don’t normally have live
music, in other words everyone you could imagine and more besides. Youth and
singles, thirty somethings and people like me. The sad music obsessed who would
go to any event in the hope it will be good music.

The ticket office was a white portacabin. The front of
house were amateur and hassled. The toilets stood next to the ticket office
fifty yards or more from the music. To reach the tent you had to cross this
field and walk by a small clump of trees, raggedly planted and more an attempt
to define a space than to create a copse of trees. I suspected this was more
some sympathetic farmers’ gesture than a serious attempt to start a new venue.

We entered the tent flashing our fresh ink stamped flesh.
The stage was to the front and the stacks covered with white Unison banners,
celebrating something or other. We had
been getting on rather better on this holiday; Claire looked at me with that
superior smile as if to say this is it? Of course Claire didn’t want a drink;
“they appear to only be selling cans of beer”. Oh the scorn in those words.

We stand there in this canvas tent that smells faintly of
the earth and wait for the music to start. I notice that Claire is staring at
what I assume to be a family, a woman in her forties with a small girl by her
side and a man, in his early fifties, well built going to paunch, shiny head
and moustache. He has hold of the girls arm and wants her to stand by him. The
girl does not look as though she really wants to and the woman continues to
stare out over the crowd. The bloke looks our way and seems to hold Claire’s
gaze for a second.

A man in a
crimpoline suit has walked onto the stage to the desultory applause of the long
haired metalers down the front, who says irony is wasted on the young?
Synthetic man talks of the importance of diversity how we need to celebrate
different cultures that make up modern Wales, this diversity is reflected in
the bill, Soca, Combia and local lads Dragon Blitzkrieg. Another cheer from the
metal boys at the front. I begin to think that perhaps irony is more widespread
than I thought.

“Get on with it” Claire is impatient, bored. Her received
pronunciation supercilious. It is obvious that she knows better than the
organisers how to run the gig.

The Soca band take to the stage, party hearty music and
the reason I wanted to drive across from our cottage and stand in a tent in a
field. Carnival music from Trinidad and Tobago, with a beat that would have the
dead dancing and if you are lucky a lyric to make you think, consciousness
music they call it. We were not lucky it was all lets party and honey I’m a
love machine but I danced anyway, as well as a man with two left feet can.

Claire gave it a go, taking small steps that make it look
like you are not moving. Claire was not in to this, her body said as much as
she avoided contact with me. I attempted to party hearty. The Soca Soul Boys
played for an hour and rocked it out. Cheerful party music, not remarkable or
heavy with lyrical worthiness, but we could dance. At some point I’d got a beer
and Claire a bottle of a supermarket lager.

The place had filled up and most of the tent was making
it like Madi Gras was late and in Carnarvon tonight. It had got hotter in the
tent and I could see that the sun had set. The Combia band, I can’t remember
their name walked on the stage to genuinely warm applause, this surprised me,
Combia being the poor cousin to salsa in Europe, but not in this tent tonight.
They began to play, if I am honest I couldn’t tell the one style from the other,
but the crowd were lapping it up. Claire shouted in my ear she was going to the
toilet and would be back in a minute. I nodded and began to follow the beat.

As I said the place was crowded and my eye caught the
feet of the two women dancing to my right. Their feet were in time and as they
performed a complex routine which seemed to consist of moving in a cross shape
and reminded me of the start of the film Viridiana. Just after the titles when
we see a girl skipping and singing, her feet describe a cross as she skips.
This was just like that, save there were two of them and as I looked at their
faces I suspected they were with the band. They were just too cool to be from
round here.

I was enjoying their dancing as much as the music when Claire
returns looking weird, her mouth a line, she does not look happy-even for
Claire. I lock eyes but before I can speak Claire says: “That man over there,
don’t look! The one with the little girl, you know we saw them earlier” I nod.
“He just exposed himself at me. I was coming back from the toilet and he was
standing there in the trees. He said “Look at this” and exposed himself. Don’t
look.”

This was not what I had expected. I went to put my arms
around her-“Don’t do that!” Claire snapped “These people want you to be excited
by their actions, it justifies what they do. Don’t touch me, and don’t look
over.”

The music was forgotten now. I thought, Christ, what am I
supposed to do? “I’ll go and have a word with him.”

“You will not. I am not having a scene.” Claire had
raised her voice and was looking everywhere but in the direction of the man. “They
get off on this.”

“Look. I’ll go over and have a word, tell him it’s out of
order.” I was thinking he may have the weight but I am younger and taller with
a longer reach. Then I think-what am I saying? Do I really think I am going to
fight with this bloke?

The Combia band finishes their set. The tent is quiet
once the locals stop clapping, there are no encores tonight, too much music to
get through.

Claire was speaking again, her words fast, choppy. “That
woman looks beaten down. That’s what these bastards do. They strip you of your
power. I feel sick, the way he was pawing that little girl. What can I do? You
are not going over there making a scene. He will only twist it around and make
me look wrong. What can I do?”

I listen to all of this, my heart sinks. You are
somewhere else tonight as well as here, but I am not brave enough to ask where.
Do I even want to know? We stand there talking, arguing about what to do.
Claire waves her social work training in my face once more, that and her years
working for the NHS. I feel out of my depth. The night started out as one thing
and has turned into something else. What should have been a relaxed evening of
music has mutated into some lesson on sexual perversions.

I try to hold Claire. “I told you don’t give that man any
signs that I liked it! That’s what he wants”.

My hands fall to my sides, I glance at the stage, and the
changeover of equipment seems to be taking an age. “Shall we go home?” I say,
though I am not sure I want to. I can see another sleepless night stretching in
front of me as I try to keep awake and Claire finds fault with everything, especially
me. Some nights she is just like that and this has all the makings of one of
those nights.

The metal band crank it out. We leave the tent, the
leather boys at the front are going for it. All air guitars and rocker moves. I
secretly glance at the man. He is holding the little girl in his arms, she
appears to be asleep she is so still.

The night feels cold after the muggy tent though this is
July. I try to put my arm around her shoulders she brushes me off. “I told you,
no!” Claire looks small and vulnerable and in some other place. I think that I
am in for a sleepless night of accusations. I am in no hurry to go back to the
rented cottage.

“I should tell the woman, but she looks so beaten down. That’s
what these men do, chip away at your core until you are just a husk and too
bloody frightened to say anything. Men are disgusting. What should I do?” I
move to say something, she cuts me off. “You’re no bloody use. What should I
do?” Claire’s voice rises, she becomes even more distressed.

A sickle moon is in the sky, skeletal it seems to hang
above the tent. Now the music is so loud I imagine it repelling the moon, the waves
of sound pushing the moon from its orbit. Save there are no sound waves in
space and they can’t hear you scream. I think I want to scream. I am in a field
in Wales, the evening lies in ruins around me, and Claire has made the space
between us even greater that it was. There will be no sleep tonight.

Regular readers will know that I interviewed Brooke a while ago and you can read the interview here.

I think that it is important that we support new singers and those who are working outside of the chains of music industry. There are many people out there making quality music that we never get to hear of. Well you have the chance to hear Brooke and to support her new ep.

Friday, 17 January 2014

Here
is a poem I have been working on for a month or so. The majority of the poem
came tumbling out one morning, as a lot of my poetry does. However, having got
the bare bones of the poem, it took a great deal longer to shape the poem. In
this process I took it to meetings of Juncture 25, and the Secret Poets, two
poetry groups I belong to. I mention this to emphasise that as well as revision
a poem needs to be read loud and commented on by other people who you respect.
Thanks guys.

Many Worlds Theory

Sometimes we will grip beyond reason

any idea which hints at salvation;

left field, widdershins, it chimes.

The compass points at the wall.

On the other side there is grace,

alternate choices, better endings.

The problem is the brick wall,

how do you pass through?

Taunted by the possible,

tortured by the Many Worlds Theory,

oh, how it hints and denies.

You are here, now - all the wrong turns,

so you watch that film again and again,

then climb the barrier, pockets loaded with stones.

You jump, sink and do not come up in this world
again.

The person in the poem refuses to believe that this is how reality
is structured and wishes to believe the Many Worlds Theory, parallel worlds to
you and me. The person wants to be in a different reality where the choices
they made were more sustainable.

Below is an earlier incarnation (about draft 10) of the poem.
Interestingly it was when I read it to the Secret Poets that the lines about
the Copenhagen Agreement sounded clunky.

Sometimes
we will grip and hold beyond reason

any
idea which hints at salvation;

left
field, widdershins, it chimes.

The
compass points at the wall,

but
it is where you want to live.

On
the other side

there
is grace, a different life

of
alternate choices, better endings.

The
problem is the brick wall,

how
do you pass through?

Taunted
by the possible,

you
rip up the Copenhagen Interpretation,

are
tortured by the Many Worlds Theory,

oh,
how it hints and denies.

You
are here, now - all the wrong turns,

so
you watch that film again and again,

then
climb the barrier, pockets loaded with stones,

we
know the reference only too well.

You
jump, sink and do not come up in this world again.

The
Copenhagen Interpretation refers to Quantum Physics. It means, as I understand
it, that when you observe a particle you reduce the number of possible values
to one random value, if you look away and look again, then the value will have
again randomly changed. You can get a more coherent explanation here.

I’d
really like to know what you make of this.

Here is a video I've found of Elis Regina and Tom Jobim singing Aguas de Marco, I think it's from the recording of the Elis & Tom album. It's such a delight to hear and see them singing together.

Friday, 10 January 2014

I am a hoarder and
once in a while I try and declutter. This last week I was sorting through some
old papers, prior to recycling and I found a draft of some poems that
I had obviously put to one side and forgotten about.

I remember clearly the events the poems described. I was lucky enough to be in Barcelona with a free day, and
nothing to do. I should explain that we are fortunate to visit the city
frequently and over the years I have seen all the attractions. On the rare occasions when I have a free day what I like to do is simply to ride the Metro, observe people and see where I end
up.

I took this at one of the stations I visited

There was a prelude
to the poems at the top of the sheet:

Take the L6-as six was your childhood lucky number and lilac is nearly
purple; the colour of Reiki. I am on an adventure, randomly riding the metro
for the day

This describes my
rationale for selecting the Metro line L6. I wanted to go to parts of the city
I had never been to. I decided to get off the train at places I liked the names
of. The station was busy and when I left on a different train I watched a man jump on board just as the doors
closed. There was a woman who was a split second too late, as the train pulled
out she seemed to glare at the occupants of the carriage.

he sprints for the train

leaps aboard all Hollywood

the star of the movie of his life

she is a second too late

the closing doors lock her out

her eyes accuse

each person in the carriage

as the train pulls out

As I remember I got
off at Tres Torres and found myself on a busy street. I then changed lines and end
up at a park.

an upright piano

(rawlbolted to the spot)

prompts people to play

i watch

iisten to notes rubbing shoulders

in unfamiliar combinations

resist the urge to touch the keyboard

as its exactly what I am supposed to do

the sun clouds over

i walk away

As I read the scrap
of paper I thought that the lines would work better in a different sequence.

Originally the
second poem began:

Rawlbolted to the spot

The upright piano in the park

Prompts passers-by to play

I thought that the
alliteration was laid on rather heavy and detracted from what I wanted to say.
I changed the lines around because I liked the idea of the first image being
the piano in an unusual setting rather than the industrial rawlbolt.

I also opened the
poem up, spacing is important and it is worth playing about with the layout as it can
change the feel of the poem.

No, I'm not in goal for writing bad poetry, just the other side of a set of railings

I am not sure that
I have captured the caterwaul of sound that cascaded from the keyboard (see
what I mean about how alliteration can be as much a hindrance as a help).

Originally in the
metro poem the woman clocks each person in the
carriage. As I read the
poem the memory came back and partly for dramatic effect I decided she could
glare at the passengers.

What do you think?

I am leaving you today with a song. Here's the late John Martyn signing Spencer The Rover.